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UK network BBC3 has ordered programming including factual shows about body image, sexually transmitted diseases and the Colorado cinema shooting.
Zai Bennett, controller of the youth-skewing public broadcaster, has ordered The Batman Shootings (1x60′), a Mentorn Media documentary that features interviews with some of those who witnessed last month’s massacre during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises.
Bennett has also greenlit a season of programming looking at body image, as well as new factual and comedy shows.
One-off 60-minute documentaries to feature in The Body Beautiful season include Renegade Pictures’ Jackie Green: Transsexual Beauty Queen, about the world’s youngest transsexual’s attempt to win Miss England; and RDF Television’s Pumping Up, Pumping Down (working title), which follows four young men as they attempt to achieve their “dream physique.”
Mentorn is also producing Dying For Clear Skin (1x60′) as well as live debate show Free Speech (1x60′) for the season. Meanwhile, I Want To Change My Body (1x90′), from Firecracker Films, sees young Brits who are unhappy with their appearance try to transform their bodies.
Other new commissions for the autumn include Stacey Dooley in the USA (3x60′), produced in-house, which sees the presenter explore unusual American communities. Unsafe Sex in the City (4x60′), from Firecracker, goes into inner-city sexual health clinics to explore the repercussions of unprotected sex.
Away from factual, BBC3 has also ordered a full series from one of its seven comedy web pilots. Impractical Jokers (6x30′), from Yalli Productions, is a hidden-camera show in which the presenters are goaded into performing embarrassing stunts in public.
Last month, BBC3 said it wanted to commission seven more full-length pilots of its web strand Feed My Funny. Impractical Jokers was one of the first pilots for that strand.
Furthermore, Talkback production Unzipped (fka Britain Unzipped) has gone to a second season (8x45′), with BBC Radio 1 DJ Greg James and comedian Russell Kane again set to host.
These commissions join BBC3′s previously announced comedy shows Cuckoo; Bad Education, featuring Fresh Meat’s Jack Whitehall; and The Revolution Will Not Be Televised; plus a second season of documentary series Our War. These will air after BBC3′s coverage of the Olympics ends.
